Third Time's a Charm
by The Decemberist
Summary: When Ichigo is forced to stay in Soul Society and Rukia deals with the fallout.
_A/N:_ For all the condescending reviewers out there who feel the need to tell people what they can and can't write, here's some advice…
 **don't.  
**

* * *

 _begin_

The first time he kisses her it's unexpected.

It's messy and awkward and (only later would she admit this to herself) far too brief but it happens.

And in her room none the less, oh she can just hear the elders if that one ever got out, how they would go on and on about _another_ scandal caused by the Rukongai princess who, on top of almost getting herself executed for crimes against society and nature, now kisses men in her private room she's not even in a relationship with.

He excuses himself right after, eyes darkened by some emotion she can't read, mostly hidden by how long his bright hair is again. She wants to say something, anything really but lately he's been acting strangely and she knows exactly why and doesn't want to find out if that was where all of his motivation came from. Won't let her heart hope that maybe, just maybe, he kissed her because he wanted to and liked her in the way all the girls at his school used to ask her if he did. No, things have been strangely lately and she will chalk it up to that.

…...

After the dust had cleared and the bodies had been all tallied up from the Quincy war, it was made clear he would be staying. To give him credit he didn't seem at all surprised by the thinly veiled order he was given ( _you'll put everyone in danger back in the world of the living_ ), maybe some part of him deep down knew that this time he had finally crossed the line between the living and the dead, gained just a little too much power to exist as a somewhat less than ordinary human like his friends. She watches from afar as he bides his friends and family goodbye. Intentions to visit are said like promises, feverently and desperately from his gentler sister and father while Karin just stares at anything but him. His friends are caught off guard by the whole thing and don't know what to say and she knows they don't want to make promises they can't keep because at the end of the day they never belonged in this world, it's not their time or place to flit back and forth between dimensions playing god anymore.

She offered him a room at her home while he adjusts and when he accepts she knows it's only out of practicality and no particular desire to live with her and her brother. He genuinely just as no where to _go_. He was offered a captain's spot almost immediately but he told her he declined for the time being, he wants to take some time and adjust before taking on any huge responsibility and he besides he doesn't think he'd be that great of a leader anyway. She scoffed, tells him that he's a fool and already a great leader but doesn't push the matter any further. They walked quietly back to her home and it reminded her of when she used to play human and he would walk her home from school.

…...

The morning after he says nothing about kissing her and she decides that dwelling on it would only giver her headache anyway. They eat breakfast in comfortable silence and when they're done she goes off to her squad's barracks to start her paperwork for the day and he goes...well she's not really sure where he goes because she doesn't want to pry but is starting to get worried when he disappears for long stretches of time. It's been two weeks since he said goodbye to his human life and she can't tell exactly how he's taking it. She remembers what it was like two years ago when she thought they were saying goodbye permanently, how painful it was to not only say goodbye to him but to say goodbye to a life that she had never gotten the chance to fully experience but loved all the same. There is a reason the dead and living aren't supposed to do what they had done, along with the spiritual balance and cycle of life and all that bullshit it's just so damn hard to exist between two worlds but the real pain is being forced to pick just one. She doesn't tell him any of this though, because none of it will change the fact that he had to give up his life without actually _dying_ and hates how unfair it all is for him and wishes for the hundredth time that he had never been cursed with meeting her.

The day drags by until she slips out at lunch, claiming a meeting with Matsumoto and Hinamori that may take some time. Her captain smiles and nods and tells her to take as much time as she needs, eyes never betraying he sees right through her lie. Once she's on her own she scans the area looking for his reiatsu until she faintly feels him up by the hill where she was almost executed. Even with shunpo it takes her some time to finally reach the top where she sees him sitting quietly by the edge, his back to her. She sits next to him without a word, not knowing what to say and beginning to regret even finding him because _if he went to all the trouble of coming up here he probably wants to be alone_ -

but he starts talking before she can finish her thought, telling her he's been coming here to think for the past few days because he needs a rest from training with Renji and Ikkaku all the time. She goes to leave but he stops her and tells her he doesn't mind if she stays so she sits next to him, shoulders occasionally touching as they both gaze upon the dysfunctional heaven they now call home.

…...

She knows he's been going to world of the living. She's not sure how, but she _knows_ that's where he's been sneaking off to when he tells her he's going to bed early but really goes down to the 12th and his reiatsu disappears until the sun is peaking over the horizon, looking exhausted but placated when they eat in the morning. He's not telling so she doesn't ask.

…...

Even though she told herself she wouldn't think about it her mind has been plagued by memories of their kiss, the way his lips were uncoordinated but confident when they moved against her own, how his hands snaked around her waist pulling her tight against him, the way she reciprocated all too easily...

and how it all ended as quickly as it started and he was gone before she even had time to process what had happened. To her knowledge, she's almost positive that was his first kiss. _She_ was his first kiss. The thought is oddly satisfying in a way she can't quite understand, and she wonders if it's because she's never been anyone's first _anything_ , even if it was something as trivial as a kiss.

She's not even sure she remembers her first kiss but assumes it was probably something innocent back in her Rukongai days with Renji and their friends, back when kissing was something akin to teasing. And then there was Kaien, and she wasn't even his first choice (he was married for crying out loud) let alone his first kiss. If she could even call whatever dysfunctional affair they had a relationship, it was always behind closed doors and blanketed in shame, leaving her with wrinkled clothes and messy hair while he would breeze out like it was nothing.

But no with Ichigo it was different because he opens her juice when she can't and told her she stopped the rain and asks her to sit with him when he goes alone to think so just maybe it actually meant something and this time she doesn't stop herself from hoping it did.

…...

Two weeks pass and he's still going to the world of the living and still isn't telling her he is.

…...

She can't be in love with him. She can't. She just can't. She's mad about him keeping secrets from her because they're friends and friends don't keep secrets. (So what if she's also jealous that it's another girl who keeps pulling him back, a girl with hair infinitely longer than hers and the kind of body men would kill for.) She's not hurt she's just mad, just frustrated, and also just confused as hell because who kisses a girl who saved your life and lived in your closet and bared her soul to you and then says nothing about it like it never happened.

She can't be in love with him because she's been in love before and it was nothing like this. Love was getting tongue tied and flushed and taking whatever way you could get (like supply closets instead of dates and desks instead of beds) because you were in love and love isn't all rainbows and unicorns it's sacrificing and can hurt like hell.

...But now even to her that sounds incredibly unhealthy. She knew her relationship with her previous vice captain wasn't exactly normal but she wonders if maybe it just a little more than messed up her idea of love and romance and all that feelings crap she hates to talk about. She remembers back to the beginning when she tried to save him from getting involved with her sins, back to what feels like another lifetime ago when she realized how much of a burden friendship and love and _feelings_ are and can't help but echo that sentiment to herself now.

…...

The second time he kisses her is when she goes to confront him about his escapades in the world of the living. She decides she's had enough, and goes to his room one morning to confront him. Just as the sun is peaking over the horizon she knocks sharply on his door and when he answers he looks far too awake for someone who claims to be just awoken from a deep sleep. That's bullshit she tells him, and when she goes to say more she blinks and he's standing right in front of her and another blink and he's kissing her again _._ It's different from before, it's desperate and hard and raw and she can taste the sadness in him as she feels herself being pushed against the wall, clinging to him and whispering his name.

Except this time she's the one who breaks away first, searching his eyes for some semblance of understanding and finding nothing and she finally finds her voice; colored by hurt and confusion she demands to know how and why he's been sneaking off to the world of living without telling her and why he's been acting so strange lately and and and-

but his eyes harden into something she can't understand. He shakes his head and doesn't answer, tells her he _can't_ answer her and leaves her standing in his room with swollen lips and an empty heart and she wonders how the hell is this happening again when he was supposed to be different.

…...

She doesn't see him for another day and wonders if he's figured out some way to go back to his home for good. Fine, she's tired of trying to understand him anyway. And that's what she tries to tell herself but by the end of the day she hasn't felt his reiatsu and she's so damn _worried_ about what he could've done to be gone for so long. Dinner is quiet; she eats with her brother for the first time in a while and he doesn't bring up the absence of their extended houseguest and for once she's thankful for his endless devotion to tact and table manners. Hours later she's ready to sleep until she feels a slight stir and _oh thank god_ she feels his reiatsu fill the emptiness in the air. She feels it drawing closer and closer and closer and closer until

...what the hell.

She feels him right outside her door before the knock comes, quietly and almost apologetically until she mumbles come in knowing he'll barge in anyway. When his eyes meet hers she sees an old resolve she hadn't seen in awhile and when he speaks she blinks and asks him to repeat himself because what did he just say?

"I said I'm sorry."

Well. That she certainly hadn't been what she was expecting. She sighs, her frustrations from the past few days melting away. She's been too hard on him.

"Please don't apologize to me," She speaks quietly, almost embarrassed about the entire situation. "Uprooting your life without any choice in the matter isn't easy, especially since you would never have been in this situation if it wasn't because of me in the first place. You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to...I just want you to be safe."

He screws up his eyes at her like he can't understand what she's saying, and proceeds to explain the entire situation. How Kurotsuchi had created a gigai that ate his reiatsu like Kenpachi's eyepatch did only one hundred times more powerful, and while it would burn out after a few hours it still gave him some time at home. How the first few times made him miss his life there and spurred him into going back but lately even that hadn't been able to quell the confusion he felt in his heart, and that-

"Ever since I met you I thought this place was where I belonged on some level, and after I lost my powers I realized I didn't want to go back to being a normal human. And when they told I couldn't even if I wanted to, I thought this, being here and not having to pretend to be something I'm not would finally satisfy me. And yet...I still didn't feel like I belonged here. I wasn't a part of a squad. I missed my family. But then when I was home the last time it was obvious I didn't belong there anymore either and don't think I want to go back for a while. And I didn't want to tell you because you've been so helpful and done so much for me I didn't want you to think I was ungrateful...I thought I could figure this out on my own without dragging you into my problems again. But that obviously didn't work, and I'm sorry."

She doesn't know what to say. What is there to say? On some level she understands the pain of living in both worlds, but can't completely empathize because at the end of the day she really is _dead_ and belongs among those like her. He has somehow managed to be a combination of both worlds and wholly belong in neither one.

"And to top it all off," She didn't realize he wasn't done speaking, "I think I've been in love with you for a long time and didn't want that to ruin our friendship. But now...now I don't think I can just be friends with you anymore."

"Fool," She whispers shakily, in disbelief at what she is hearing "Why didn't you just tell me all of this from the start?"

"I just told you why. I didn't want to be a burden," He says stubbornly and she can't help but argue with his logic and suddenly he's fifteen again and she's just the shinigami that lives in his closet; some things about them will never change.

They both end their argument in a huff and she can't help but laugh at the absurdity of it all. She warns him she probably won't be a good girlfriend and he sputters and stammers that he doesn't care and so does that mean she feels the same way?

"Of course I do I…I think I've been in love with you for a long time too."

This is new territory for them because they are not the type to indulge themselves in feelings and sappy confessions and she wants to break the awkward silence that descends upon them again somehow but of course just ends up sputtering some nonsense about how her brother will really have it out for him now. He laughs anyway and she marvels at just how far they've come; an empty shinigami girl and a broken human boy who managed to save each other and a couple of worlds along the way.

…...

The third time he kisses her they both do not break away for a long time. They are not perfect; he is still struggling with where he belongs in this new life and she will forever have her scars from the past but she knows they will make it through together somehow. They always do.

 _end_


End file.
